KUALA LUMPUR — Hengyuan Refining Company (HRC), formerly known as Shell Refining Company (Federation of Malaya), held a ground-breaking ceremony Friday to commence the construction of a refinery upgrade program that will enable the refinery to produce Euro4M grade motor gasoline.

The $135 million program will involve the installation of an integrated program, which will facilitate the production of gasoline that meets the Euro4M specification, the company said.

HRC Chairman Wang Youde said the upgrading will include state-of-the-art technologies that have been tried-and-tested in refineries in China's eastern Shandong province.

Upon completion, this upgrade will allow the group's Port Dickson refinery to produce up to 1.15 million metric tons of gasoline per annum, Wang added.

The upgrading works are expected to be completed by the fourth quarter next year.

Hengyuan currently manages and operates a refinery in Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan in Malaysia, with licensed production capacity of 156,000 barrels per day.

The refinery is involved in the refining and manufacturing of petroleum products, and provides employment for more than 500 individuals comprising of staff and contractors.